Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. All right, so let's head out
Speaker 1: to Las Vegas and that as they call it. Patrick
Speaker 1: Little is their senior vice president and general manager of
Speaker 1: Qualcom Global Automotive. He's there with tens of thousands, probably
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of people for ce S are headed
Speaker 1: there shortly. So Patrick, tell me what's going on with
Speaker 1: Qualcom these days, especially as it relates to tech in
Speaker 1: our cars. Well, yeah, c S, it's a it's just
Speaker 1: kicking off now, I guess it kicks off tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1: And Otto is the big buzz out here in Las
Speaker 1: Vegas this week. So Otto used to be an afterthought
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, Otto is the central thing
Speaker 1: out of c Yes, it's become the main, the main
Speaker 1: part of the show. And so very big for Qualcolm
Speaker 1: this year is we've announced our first autonomous drive platform.
Speaker 1: We've been working on it with big customers like Gem
Speaker 1: over the last few years and finally just unveiled it
Speaker 1: in our press conference just a few minutes ago. So
Speaker 1: Bloomberg is one of the first to find out about it.
Speaker 1: It's called snap Dragon Ride and it's basically the central
Speaker 1: computer brain inside the vehicle that's going to allow your
Speaker 1: car eventually to take on some driving functions and eventually
Speaker 1: drive itself over the coming years. All Right, So I
Speaker 1: feel like this is long awaited in many ways. Is
Speaker 1: the year that that we actually see this in cars
Speaker 1: or is it going to take a little bit longer
Speaker 1: for that robust autonomous driving experience? Yeah? You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's going to be evolutionary. So just like everything else
Speaker 1: an automotive, it won't just be one day the cars
Speaker 1: are driving themselves. You know, I think it's a society.
Speaker 1: We can't adapt that quickly, and so what's really limiting um.
Speaker 1: You know, technology is certainly evolving continuously, um, But what's
Speaker 1: really limiting it is our reality as humans to be
Speaker 1: able to acclimate to the changes. And so what you'll
Speaker 1: see is what you're already seeing, and that is you'll
Speaker 1: go from level one to level five autonomy where the
Speaker 1: car will start to break itself in certain conditions, and
Speaker 1: then it might steer itself or to keep in the lane,
Speaker 1: and then it might recognize some road signs and eventually
Speaker 1: help you on the highway and then eventually help you
Speaker 1: and stop and go traffic, and then ten years from
Speaker 1: now you'll turn around the car will be fully driving,
Speaker 1: after you've acclimated to kind of each one of these
Speaker 1: use models. And that's the way passenger vehicles will evolve. Patrick,
Speaker 1: I think that's what will get us all used to it.
Speaker 1: I feel like in many ways, the technology is certainly there.
Speaker 1: We've seen that right with um various automakers already in
Speaker 1: terms of self driving cars. Tesla certainly front and center here.
Speaker 1: I guess as I'm on the car, my car can
Speaker 1: kind of drive on its own already also, but it's
Speaker 1: not a Tesla. But what's interesting is I constantly think
Speaker 1: about the infrastructure around me. I think about, you know,
Speaker 1: messy roads or signs and things that aren't so clear
Speaker 1: that are going to complicate our move towards a fully
Speaker 1: self driving world. So where are we on that? Who's
Speaker 1: responsible for that? Because if once you start getting towns
Speaker 1: and governments and things involved, that to me says it's
Speaker 1: going to take a lot longer. Now, I think you
Speaker 1: put your finger on it. So it's it's easy enough
Speaker 1: in what's called the closed loop situation for cars to
Speaker 1: be able to drive themselves. The technology is just nearly
Speaker 1: there to be able to make that happen with mobility
Speaker 1: services and robot taxis and these things enclosed loop environments.
Speaker 1: It's the open loop environments that you're talking about, where
Speaker 1: there's potholes in the roads that aren't mapped, these types
Speaker 1: of things, and so it's it's evolved, continuously evolving the
Speaker 1: technology where it's able to detect these things um which
Speaker 1: is really going to allow us to be able to
Speaker 1: run these open loop scenarios. And that's why we're graduating
Speaker 1: passenger vehicles from level one up until level five autonomy
Speaker 1: over the counting years. Another point you made was very good,
Speaker 1: and that is the infrastructure. So it won't be just
Speaker 1: the cars that are that are that are helpful and autonomy.
Speaker 1: The infrastructure itself will know a lot more. It will
Speaker 1: know where the potholes are, it will know where the traffic,
Speaker 1: where the traffic jams exist. And so I think it's
Speaker 1: a it's a concert of what's going on in the
Speaker 1: car and the technology and very similar technology in the infrastructure.
Speaker 1: And so each the sad answer to it is each
Speaker 1: municipality is responsible for putting together that infrastructural approach. And
Speaker 1: some states like California and Arizona are a little bit
Speaker 1: more advanced, and there's other states that I think are
Speaker 1: falling behind. But it will be the marriage of infrastructure
Speaker 1: and the car to be able to really bring a
Speaker 1: full self driving environment over the coming decade. It's almost
Speaker 1: like crowdsourcing or crowdfunding. I do think about ways and
Speaker 1: how it works, and man, I've been pulled into it,
Speaker 1: or I'm like, oh, yeah, I just saw a copp
Speaker 1: or oh yeah, there's a car pulled over, Like you know,
Speaker 1: you start doing that, and I do wonder how much
Speaker 1: that will have to be a part of, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of what happens in the future. So Patrick, go ahead, No,
Speaker 1: now you're you're bringing in a very important point. That's
Speaker 1: why five G is necessary because as Jason is are
Speaker 1: runs over a pothole, figures out that the road is closed,
Speaker 1: it can report that up to a cloud and that
Speaker 1: we'll use that crowdsource information to inform all the vehicles
Speaker 1: across the network. So cars will no longer be isolated
Speaker 1: on their own. We're connecting all the cars together and
Speaker 1: the cars to the infrastructure, like we discussed last time
Speaker 1: I was on your show, with the two X technology
Speaker 1: So Patrick, I'd just like to point out that you
Speaker 1: have pointed out that Carol asked really good questions and
Speaker 1: apparently I drove drive over potholes. So I'm not holding
Speaker 1: it against you because you're all the way out there
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas' bro. I'm just I'm just saying, alright, so, uh,
Speaker 1: just only about thirty seconds left and we're gonna hold
Speaker 1: you over for the next segment. But the mood you
Speaker 1: said pretty good out there as it relates to cars
Speaker 1: right now, Ces, it's just amazing. So ce s. As
Speaker 1: I mentioned, five years ago, automotive was an afterthought, pushed
Speaker 1: away in one of the halls, and now it's just
Speaker 1: his front and center. I can tell you qual Calm
Speaker 1: we did seven or eight press releases, seven of the
Speaker 1: we're all about automotive and autonomy and different services that
Speaker 1: were offering now, so automotive has really become the center
Speaker 1: of what's going on in the bus at CS and
Speaker 1: no true than more true than this year. Patrick Little
Speaker 1: is our guest. He's senior VP General manager at Qualcom
Speaker 1: Global Automotive, getting ready to head to CS out in
Speaker 1: Vegas on the phone from San Diego though on this
Speaker 1: Monday Hey, Patrick, we do want to move on. But
Speaker 1: one more question I have, because you are seeing what's
Speaker 1: going on in terms of self driving technology, chips increasingly
Speaker 1: playing a bigger role when it comes to the automotive space,
Speaker 1: is are all automotive companies alike in terms of their
Speaker 1: pursuit and pushing towards self driving or are there some
Speaker 1: that from your vantage point, are definitely ahead of the pack.
Speaker 1: Now that it's not it's not homogeneous, for sure, There
Speaker 1: there are, but it is there are. There are leaders
Speaker 1: in Europe, there are leaders in North American, leaders in China.
Speaker 1: One of the companies that we announced that we're working
Speaker 1: very closely with his General Motors. They've been a partner
Speaker 1: of ours since twenty since two thousand two, and we
Speaker 1: launched on Star together, and so they're one of the
Speaker 1: more advanced companies in North America that's really pushing for
Speaker 1: autonomous driving. And they've come out with their super crews
Speaker 1: and their ultra crews in different varieties of their autonomous driving.
Speaker 1: But that's one one company I think that in partnership
Speaker 1: with Qualcom, has really been able to break new barriers
Speaker 1: in autonomous driving. Several of the German automakers are really
Speaker 1: aggressive and we've been working with several of them as well.
Speaker 1: So there are laggards and leaders in the space, for sure.
Speaker 1: I think everyone has the same goal in mind, and
Speaker 1: that is safety. Really autonomous driving and eight ASS is
Speaker 1: really all about safety. Uh. And so you have North
Speaker 1: America a couple of leaders, and a couple of leaders
Speaker 1: in Germany, and certainly a few in Asia that are
Speaker 1: that are continuing to lead the way. But General Motors
Speaker 1: is a friend of the family, will say, and they've
Speaker 1: really been working closely with us. Two, I would say,
Speaker 1: in kind of a trusted advisor partnership. Patrick, we talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about this a few minutes ago, but
Speaker 1: I've g tell us what that actually looks like because
Speaker 1: I feel like too often, I think we talked about
Speaker 1: this with you when you visited with us before. This
Speaker 1: notion of like, yeah, three G, two four G, thing's
Speaker 1: got a little bit faster, But five G feels like
Speaker 1: more of a game changer, really sort of a step
Speaker 1: function up. As they say, tell us what that actually
Speaker 1: looks like, especially when it comes to your business. Yeah,
Speaker 1: five five G is a game changer across nearly every
Speaker 1: industry and certainly that's true for automotive, and so those
Speaker 1: core tenants of five G just to speed, the low latency,
Speaker 1: in other words, your your time to access it is
Speaker 1: very high. The reliability is extremely high, which is very
Speaker 1: important for automotive, and it's going to make a bunch
Speaker 1: of change. Five G alone will make quite a few
Speaker 1: changes in automotive. One of the things we talked about
Speaker 1: when we last spoke was a cellular vehicle to everything,
Speaker 1: or vehicles talking to other vehicles, talking to the infrastructure.
Speaker 1: It's very important that the network be available all the time,
Speaker 1: and so five G has extremely high reliability, much higher
Speaker 1: than three G or four G. And I think that's
Speaker 1: an important part of connecting the car to the world
Speaker 1: around it is that reliability also for eight as it's
Speaker 1: important there will be so much data coming from the
Speaker 1: car and going to the car in terms of maps
Speaker 1: and algorithms and other data back and forth. It's very
Speaker 1: important that you have that very high throughput that five
Speaker 1: G can give you. So five G will actually play
Speaker 1: a very central role in many aspects of the evolution
Speaker 1: of automotive, not only for autonomy and not only connecting
Speaker 1: the car to the world around it. But even to
Speaker 1: be able to stream movies and audio and other content
Speaker 1: to your car. As you bring your digital life into
Speaker 1: the car, automotive standards, will they be um the same
Speaker 1: around the globe. Ultimately, we're trying to you know, we're
Speaker 1: trying for that global harmonization, particularly with the V two
Speaker 1: X are connecting the car to the world around it.
Speaker 1: We're really turn to harmonize a on a specific spectrum,
Speaker 1: a specific set of goals and object is so that
Speaker 1: you can have this common experience across the entire globe.
Speaker 1: We really do learn from each other in North America, Europe, Asia,
Speaker 1: we we have this common network in the industry and
Speaker 1: we really do learn from each other. So hopefully there'll
Speaker 1: be a nice harmony now in sigula V to X.
Speaker 1: China is definitely ahead. They announced the spectrum well ahead
Speaker 1: of the other territories. And it's what I was mentioning
Speaker 1: to you before. They're they're a little bit ahead of
Speaker 1: everyone because of their decisiveness on on V V two
Speaker 1: X technology. Um. But yeah, we try to harmonize these
Speaker 1: capabilities in these functions across the globe, and automakers like
Speaker 1: it that way. They don't like to have to do
Speaker 1: a model for Europe model for North America. They like
Speaker 1: to be able to have a lot of leverage in
Speaker 1: their investments across all territories and frankly from the smallest
Speaker 1: car or from the low end car to the premium car.
Speaker 1: They want that leverage as well. Right, all right, we'll
Speaker 1: have a great show. Patrick Little, senior Vice president and
Speaker 1: general manager of Qualcom Global Automotive. He joined us on
Speaker 1: the phone from Tanyo, headed to Vegas. Some big announcements
Speaker 1: from Qualcom. Sounds like cars moving from sort of the
Speaker 1: back lot to the main aisle there at the big
Speaker 1: electronic show in Vegas. Baby, Yeah, pretty cool. And we'll
Speaker 1: watch for some of the announcement that comes out over
Speaker 1: the next week, so definitely following that.